doesn't he go to the war, and fight for his country, and
come home a fine man like his cousin? Ah, you think there are different
ways of coming home, do you? Well, if you ask me, I am prouder of my
lost limbs than the young captain is of his rank and his uniform."

"And Monsieur Angelot honours you, poor Martin, more than he does his
smart cousin," said Joubard. "Allons! Our vintage will not suffer, now
that you are at home to see to it. And they will not take you away
again, my son!"

So, in those first days of October, the vintage was in full swing at La
Mariniere. All the peasants came to help, men and women, old and young.
Dark, grave faces that matched oddly with a babel of voices and gay
laughter; broad straw hats as sunburnt as their owners, white caps, blue
shoulders, bobbing among the long rows of bronzed vines loaded with
fruit. The vintagers cut off the bunches with sharp knives and dropped
them into wooden pails; these were emptied into great _hottes_ on men's
backs, and carried to the carts, full of barrels, waiting in the lane.
Slowly the patient white horses tramped down to the yard of La
Mariniere. There, in its own whitewashed building with the wide-arched
door, the stone wine-press was ready; the grapes were thrown in in
heaps, the barefooted men, splashed red to their waists, trod and
crushed with a swishing sound; the red juice ran down in a stream,
foaming into the vault beneath, into the vats where it was to ferment
and become wine.

Angelot worked in the vineyard like anybody else, sometimes cutting
grapes, sometimes leading the carts up and down, and feeding the horses
with bunches of grapes, which they munched contentedly. So did the dogs
who waited on the vintagers, not daring to venture in among the vines,
but sitting outside with eager eyes and wagging tails till their portion
of fruit was thrown to them. And the workers themselves, and the little
bullet-headed boys and white-capped girls who played about the vineyard,
all ate grapes to their satisfaction; for the crop was splendid, and
there was no need to stint anybody.

A festal spirit reigned over all. Though most of these people were good
Christians, ready to thank God for His gifts without any intention of
misusing them, there was something of the old pagan feeling about.
Purely a country feeling, a natural religion much older than
Christianity, as Urbain remarked to the old Cure, who agreed with Madame
Urbain in not quite caring f